


Heal Thyself

by Mara



Category: Stargate: Atlantis
Genre: Drama, Episode Tag, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-17
Updated: 2009-11-17
Packaged: 2017-10-03 06:05:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mara/pseuds/Mara
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carson, after the events of "Michael."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Heal Thyself

**Author's Note:**

> TheFourthVine wanted someone to explain Carson's actions to her. I tried. :shrug: Let me know how I did, 'kay?

"Dr. Beckett," Nurse Mellon said as she packed away the last of the new antibiotics, "you need to get some sleep."

He started from his thoughts, glancing up at her. "Oh. Hullo. I just...have some things to do first." The laptop screen was a blur in front of him, but he stared fixedly at it, doing his best imitation of a doctor/researcher hard at work.

"Mmm." She didn't buy it. "I'd better not find you still sitting here when I come back on shift."

"Of course not." Because I'll go sit somewhere else and not sleep, he thought with a complete lack of amusement.

"Good night."

"Good night."

She left and he gave up even the pretense, taking his hands off the keyboard and watching them shake. He was reminded of the first case of the DTs he ever saw--the shaking, the way the woman screamed in agony as her body rid itself of the toxin she'd been taking to retreat from her wretched life.

Carson wished there was something he could take. But there wasn't. He had to live with the shaking and the piercing agony in his head that was all in his mind but hurt nonetheless, not to mention the wretched life.

But he'd gone down this road of his own free will and he couldn't blame anyone--no, not even Elizabeth--for the choices he'd made. For the way he'd exiled himself from his own profession.

Because he'd never be able to practice medicine on Earth again. He shouldn't be doing it here, but he couldn't give up his life willingly, couldn't admit to anyone else how far he'd strayed from his own sense of ethics, let alone what the medical profession required of its practitioners.

He'd experimented on a living being, lied to a patient--not the white lies all doctors learned when it was necessary, but cold-bloodedly telling a complete fabrication to a patient in order to continue experimenting on him. And in the process, he'd exposed Atlantis to the Wraith once again.

Carson put his head in his hands, glad that nobody was nearby to see him break down. How had it come to this?

It had seemed so clear when the idea first came to him, when the Wraith were monsters eating his colleagues, when he saw the results of Wraith feeding. Make the monsters not monsters anymore, and then he'd never ever have to see another desiccated body of someone he'd treated for tendonitis. Make them human and never have to counsel a half-consumed Marine who'd looked 25 in the morning and now moved like an 80-year-old.

Carson put his shaking hands on the desk in front of him, lay them flat, and considered the things he'd done. He'd saved lives. Oh yes, he'd saved lives that even he wasn't sure could be saved. He'd saved Genii lives, and not just for leverage against Cowen. He'd saved countless lives on countless worlds, fearing for his life at every turn, starting when anyone came up behind him.

His fear of the Wraith had led him so far outside the bounds of his own ethics, he no longer knew which way to turn.

The worst part, he thought with distaste, was that nobody else seemed to see that what they'd done was wrong. They were upset that they'd warned the Wraith, but had no conception that the entire project had been evil to begin with.

Carson put his head in his hands and wondered if he'd ever sleep again.


End file.
